“HUNTS COFFEE’S ON!”
Rick's voice hurtled through the once serene forest, throwing quite a few frantic birds out of their nests aflutter and eventually bouncing off a rocky hillside - illiciting from deep within it's cavernous belly a loud thud, followed by a slow painful groan.
So this was what coffee was like.
Hunching over the railings of the Lochpine home and staring down at an oversized mug in it's hands, was a creature that would send your average household dweller screaming blue murder and reaching for the nearest firearms they had in their cupboards.
Tall enough to bump it's head against the porch roof and covered from top to toe in a thick coat of tawny fur, it's ursine-like face winced, perturbed, when it took another sip of the bitter beverage.
Abhorently chemical at first, like the darkest chocolate but without the reward of a sweet aftertaste at the end. If the remnants of a campfire were to marry water, this would be their estranged offspring. .......yet, for all the rancid astringency. Like a bitter inferno, it burns off yesternight's breath and everything ingested before it. Leaving one's pallette spotless ...with a strangely pleasant, smoky afterglow.
The creature pondered over the taste, proccessing far more thought than it's appearance portrayed. Unfortunately this time the drink did not trigger any memories. It was a ritual they did, started by the Ricks family as part of Hunts' therapy, where farmiliar foods might lead him to remembering bits of his past life as a Human. They had some success in the past with eggnog and pound cake, but coffee was completely alien to him. Granted their daughter, Angela, the newest ranger on this preserve of madness could not cook if her life depended on it, all he had for the past few weeks were drinks, more drinks and an unceremonious block of salt.
...
...
...
Still, fair is fair. Hunts reached one of his long arms down and hefted up an electronic fan that now sat neatly on the floorboards of the porch. It was one of those antique designs, nothing more than a motor and blades welded to a copper pedestal. Then he plugged in the cord to an outdoor socket, turning it on carefully with the nudge of his large fingernail. The device purred and the blades spun to life, buffetting his waist with a cool artificial breeze that has not blown in such a long time. A twinge of satisfaction curled unto his tusked lips. The moment was short lived and bittersweet however, for he had to return the toolbox used to repair it too. He patted it's plastic cover sentimentally as if to say 'We'll see each other soon.' before leaving it on the porch, right beside it's patient ...all with but a silent goodbye.
The sun was yet to be fully up and the horizon had only just started to tinge orange as he walked around the side of the house, which meant it was safe for him. Hypothethically. Trolls cannot be in the sunlight for too long afterall and according to the other trolls, he would turn to stone. Hunts has never seen a troll statue before so he cannot prove it, but the fact that there weren't any petrified trolls around was a dark, hindsighted reminder that other of his kind often ate stone. For his sanity's sake, he had never pursued the question further.
Hunts avoided direct sunlight for more mundane reasons though, one - it was unbearably hot to be more than a few minutes in it, painful even, what with his excess of hair, and two - his body was incorrigible at regulating temperature. It was like nature was deisgning trolls and when it came to deciding if they were warm-blooded or cold-blooded, she went Meh!
No sooner than he finished musing about the sun, did he see a farmiliar shadow cropping out from behind the silhouette of the house. The troll slowly approached Baldwin. He had an offspring, Bonnie, they were both sentinels of Angela Rick and he, unfortunately, was a fae. The very thing they were to sentinel against. This meant no sudden movements on his part around Rick when they were watching and definitely no yelling.
He waved at the golem, really not expecting anything back, it was just a habit. Then turned to Rick in her crocodile-hunter getup, something about a woman in wilderness attire made him pay more attention. His eyes wandered for a moment then he shook his head, mentally reprimanding himself, searching for a distraction.
"Tinkerbell's not coming again?" Hunt's voice was baritone in pitch but with the notes of a young, civillized man in energy and speech. That was his occasional name for Malcolm, who was clearly missing from the scene. He angled his knuckles and twisted his broad shoulders, glancing up at the bedroom window where the ex-fairy slept. A crease of worry formed on his bushy brow.